Impact’s human resources experts Mary Zellers and Dona Abduli are here to talk about tips and tricks that have helped them succeed.
Every organization needs a healthy and constructive workplace to foster growth, and that’s why at Impact, HR is such a central component to our success.
But how does HR staff keep on top of everything that’s thrown their way?
In this video, join Mary and Dona as they discuss their experiences, offer advice and talk about other HR tips and tricks that are fundamental to running a great department.
Take a look!
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Find out what it takes to grow your career at Impact in this video series. Members of the team come together to answer questions they haven’t seen before, and offer tips and advice for job roles, collaboration, management and providing world-class services to clients.
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Full video transcript:
MZ: Hi, welcome to Ask Impact with Human Resources. I’m Director of Human Resources, Mary Zellers.
DA: I’m Dona Abduli; I’m HR Manager.
MZ: We’re gonna get started and just ask each other a few questions in regard to human resources here at Impact.
What skills do you find most helpful for doing your job?
MZ: I would say the biggest skill, the most helpful skill that you could have in human resources is patience. The people that come to you with questions, which is the employees, they’re asking you for a reason — no one wants to just come and chat with human resources about anything unless they’ve really got a question for you, so it’s important to be patient and understand that that they’re there for a reason and you’re there to be a resource for them.
What steps do you typically take when you are working to resolve conflict within the office?
DA: Well first you want to get all sides of the story. If there’s employee A and employee B that has an issue, you want to talk to both of them and truly understand where they’re coming from and put yourself in their shoes, and then you want to find a middle ground for both of them. To resolve their issues and come to a compromise and to answer for both of them where they can move forward from it.
MZ: Yeah, I definitely agree. I think finding that middle ground and understanding between each person — a huge part of our role is just listening; they’re coming to us with the hopes that we’re going to solve something or work something out for them, and just being there for them so that they don’t feel like they have no one on their side. We’re on everyone’s side, we’re here to work together, and we work together as a team to find the best resolution for any conflict.
What do you think is the toughest part of your job?
MZ: This is a good one. The toughest part of our job is the different personalities, the different behaviors, all the different people that you have to work with. Most departments have like-minded people within their departments — so everybody on the marketing team has similar interests and behaviors and expectations. In human resources, it’s awesome that we get to work with all different personalities, all different behaviors, and things like that, but it’s very tough because we have to adjust our mindset to understand those employees at all times based on who they are, what they believe in and things like that.
Is there any training or program that you found helpful in your role?
DA: HR has a lot of different programs that we’re members in, and these programs have a bunch of useful information for us — whether it is courses that you can take and enroll for; webinars that you can participate in; getting certificates for each of those courses that you go through a bunch of different material that you can learn from.
MZ: And I think a big part is just ongoing training, continuous education — whether it be reading LinkedIn articles about the newest employment law or case studies about different situations and scenarios. It’s a really cool position because you continuously get to learn new things, day-in and day-out, it’s always something different that you can train yourself on becoming the expert within.
What advice can you offer those looking to work in human resources?
MZ: The biggest advice I would have is find your passion within your role. If you’re going to an organization, go there with the mission of knowing that you’re going to be valued as a true resource to that organization and make sure that you’re ready to do that as opposed to just wanting to work with people. You’ve got to be patient, you’ve got to be understanding, you’ve got to be someone that everyone can lean on, day-in and day-out because that’ll really help with employee satisfaction, growing the culture and making the workplace a place that the team wants to be every single day.
MZ: Thanks for joining us for Ask Impact with Human Resources.
DA: Thank you, until next time.
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